


dress

by lazy_universes



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, I know, Present Day AU, Swearing, dancing is therapy, pole dance au, what is even this i don't know either
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-22
Updated: 2018-05-22
Packaged: 2019-05-10 00:36:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14726628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lazy_universes/pseuds/lazy_universes
Summary: She had a 5PM class. It was 4:57PM. She had three minutes to decide if she’d go forth with this insanity or if she’d just go back home and tell Angela to go fuck herself with her friendly suggestions.4:58PM.She rung the doorbell.(Or: the one where Emily teaches pole dancing, Lena is clueless, Angela just wants her friends to get laid and Amélie is a hopeless gay.)





	dress

**Author's Note:**

> what if I injured my wrist at pole class and had to lay low for a few weeks and got so much withdrawal I wrote a fic about pole dancing

_And I know you're protecting the light you're lacking_

_But oh you look like a morning star_

_Just see who we are_

  
  


“I’m just saying,” Angela said, tucking one strand of golden hair behind her ear as she sipped on her tea, “It wouldn’t _hurt,_ you know?”

 _It would,_ Amélie thought, but knew better than to argue. She stirred her teacup absently, not really interested in drinking anything, but would rather stare at the dark brown liquid than to face Angela. She knew what her face would look like - pity, concern, and a bit of infuriated consternation, a look she’d seen far too many times in the past few years and became unwillingly familiar with. She shrugged.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I’m still not sure if my body will handle it.”

“God, Amélie, this is a hobby, not olympic triathlon,” Angela said, rolling her eyes and setting her cup on the coffee table. “You like dancing and you need some positive reinforcement. You also need physical exercise-”

“I already go to physical therapy!” She protested.

“Not the same. Look,” Angela sighed, wearily. She was as tired of this conversation as Amélie felt - why she insisted on it, however, was really beyond her. “It’s been five years since the accident. It’s been five _years_ , and you can’t keep letting your grief consume you like this. You need to get out. Do _something._ Gerard-” She said, and paused when she saw Amelie physically flinch, spilling tea on her hands. “He’d want you to carry on with your life.”

Amélie bit her lip. The tea was cooling in her hands - she looked at how its surface would ripple when she moved the cup slightly. She wished she could live by those small pleasures, the things that ground her on Earth but took her away from herself.

Everybody else, to her absolute dismay, seemed to disagree.

“Besides,” Angela said, sounding smugly. “I hear Lena thinks it’s pretty hot.”

Amélie’s eyes snapped up - when she saw Angela’s shit-eating grin, she knew she had lost this battle already. _This motherfucker_ -

“Alright,” she said, crankily. “I’ll go to one class. But just _one._ And if I don’t like it I’m done with you trying to push things I don’t want to do on me. Is that good enough for you?”

“Splendid,” Angela said, smiling smugly, and Amélie wanted to groan. Some friend she was.

  


She honestly didn’t know what she was expecting, but the studio was a pre-war townhouse, complete with a small garden siding the small staircase leading to the front door. Jade Dance & Arts, said a discreet sign by the door. Amélie felt very stupid - she was expecting something between a shady strip club with a bouncer as big as the front door and Mouling Rouge. As it was, it was just another dance studio in London, windows shut by white curtains and the sound of dance steps escaping to the outside.

She had a 5PM class. It was 4:57PM. She had three minutes to decide if she’d go forth with this insanity or if she’d just go back home and tell Angela to go fuck herself with her friendly suggestions.

4:58PM.

She rung the doorbell.

“Yes?” Said a voice from the intercom.

“Um,” She said, nervously. “It’s Amélie? I’m here for the 5PM class-”

“Oh, right! Come right in, just follow the hallway until the end.”

The door buzzed open - she cleaned her shoes on the carpet just to be polite, and took a deep breath before opening the door.

The hallway was painted white, but completely overrun with pictures, certificates and medals. This was a good school, she figured, shuffling nervously as she heard the familiar “five, six, seven, eight!” coming from one of the two doors on the hallway. The staircase apparently led to even more classrooms, but she was focused on the small room on the back, the only one without a door - a reception of sorts. A woman with short blonde hair typed away happily on a computer until she saw Amélie on the corner of her eye, and stopped whatever she was doing to give her a smile.

“Hello! You must be Amelie, right?”

“Yes,” she said, gritting her teeth slightly at the butchered pronunciation of her name. One would think ten years of London living would have her being used to it already - she wasn’t. Would never be, really.

“Good!” She smiled, brightly and eerily cheerful. Amélie took a careful step back. “First time pole dancing?”

She felt like dying inside - it was so much more real when said out loud. She had no idea what on earth had made Angela so obsessed with the idea, but there she was. No giving up now.

“Yeah,” she nodded.

“Great! You’re with Emily. Class 3, just up the stairs, first door to the left. Enjoy!”

She nodded, swallowing, and carefully treading up the staircase, opening the door slightly-

And falling in love instantly.

Gabriel used to say she met a different soulmate every morning and laughed at her daily infatuations, but she couldn’t help but be enticed by people - she liked people who were beautiful, but specially people who moved like they owned the world and the ground they stepped on. She liked admiring them from afar, watching carefully for the details of their bodies, how they moved and how they carried themselves.

This woman was all of that, and yet nothing in specific. She was shorter than Amélie, but with a fiery red hair that looked as if she had rubies falling down her shoulders in a messy ponytail. She was wearing nothing but a sports bra and a small pair of shorts that left nothing of her butt left to imagination, knee pads and socks, and was holding a pair of seven inch heels in a fierce neon pink color that would be outrageous to any other person but her.

Amélie gasped and swallowed thickly.

“Hey!” The woman said, approaching her. She eyed the room nervously - there were three people changing into clothes similar to what the redhead was wearing, and suddenly she felt way overdressed in her running shorts. “You must be Amélie, right?”

“Yeah,” she said, weakly - the woman smiled, and she felt her knees go weak and threaten to give up under her weight.

“Great! I’m Emily,” she said.

Emily, then. What a beautiful name.

(There was nothing special about the name Emily in itself - Amelie just was that shaken. And gay.

Very much gay.)

“First pole class?” She asked.

“Yes,” she cleared her throat, willing her body to behave - and failing miserably.

“Good,” Emily smiled, and her stomach did backflips. “Do you practice any exercise?”

“I go to physical therapy,” she said, tightly. “I used to do ballet, but quit about five years ago.”

“Oh, great!” Emily said, excitedly. “So you’ve got a pretty good head start. Muscle memory will be your best friend here. Do you have any injuries or illnesses that you think are important for me to know?”

Amélie paused, feeling cold all of a sudden. That she had - a whole litany of injuries, illnesses and general maladies she could list in alphabetical order, but none she felt comfortable discussing even with her doctors, let alone with a complete stranger in scarce clothing holding neon pink stripper heels, no matter how beautiful said stranger was. She must’ve been in silence for a moment too long, because Emily let her smile falter slightly before shaking her head.

“Hey, you don’t have to tell me,” she said, softly. “If it’s difficult for you, we’ll go on a need to know basis. Do you have chronic pain?”

“Some,” she said.

“Okay,” Emily said. “Classes usually start with warming up, then some strength training, mostly based in callisthenics, and then we go to the movements. I usually do two figures and a spin per class, but that goes from teacher to teacher. We wrap up with some stretching, and then you’re good to go. We also offer choreographic pole classes, that’s when we get to dancing actually, but usually if you have no pole experience we recommend you doing some pole classes first, just to get to know the thing. Okay so far?”

“Yeah,” Amélie said. It wasn’t - she had lost herself halfway through Emily’s explanation, distracted by her fading purple lipstick, and was too embarrassed to ask again.

“We mix students of different levels, but the classes have four people max, so everyone gets a piece of me,” Emily winked, and Amélie could swear she could hear her knees begging for relief. “Ready to start?”

“Sure,” she answered, suddenly aware she had no idea what to do. Emily pointed her to a pole close to the mirror - she faced her own reflection and almost gave up the entire idea on the spot.

No one said there would be _mirrors_.

“Okay girls,” Emily called, resting her heels in the corner of the room. Amelie looked at her trembling knees, the angry red scars on her legs, her hands fisted on her sides-

Emily turned off the lights.

“Simple stretching, now,” she called, softly. “Roll your shoulders softly, five times backwards and five times forward…”

Amélie relaxed into the familiar feeling of being directed - she figured if she closed her eyes, it would feel just like the guided yoga videos she attempted on her own. She found her mind being emptied of feeling, only the soft sound of music filling her ears; she sighed, following Emily’s commands naturally. It was easy, just letting herself go, and she thought maybe that wasn’t such a bad idea after all-

“Okay!” Emily said, chirpy, as soon as she finished coaching them through the series of stretches and warm ups. “We’re gonna do some sit ups for the day. Amélie, can I use you for a bit?”

She choked on her own saliva, coughing before nodding warily. Her smile was blinding - she could see the teacher’s lithe form under the dim lighting, and it was so distracting she completely forgot there was even a mirror showing her everything she didn’t want to see.

There would be no way of escaping being called a gay mess by Angela any time soon.

“I’m gonna touch you real quick, okay?” Emily said - Amélie nodded in anticipation, and almost whined with how warm her hands were - calloused, yet soft with her touches. She shivered. “Sit down with your back on the floor and flex your knees- Yeah, like this. I’m gonna hold you by your ankles and you are going to sit up with your hands behind your back, okay? Three series of ten, I’m gonna help you. The rest of you can do the same, three series of ten, but the teacher privilege today goes to Amélie,” she winked.

Amelie whined, but sat up anyways.

She knew she _could_ do this, before. She had underestimated how much sedentarism had caught up with her, and found herself gasping for air at sit up number five. By number eight, it was a struggle to even raise her head, and she groaned a strained breath.

Emily took up one of the hands that were under her head and put it over her stomach. “Okay, relax and take a deep breath,” she said, pushing Amélie to the floor. “In… and out. Good. Now, let’s try this again. I want you to feel what your muscles are doing.”

 _They are wishing they could wrap around you_ , she thought, but cleared her throat before inhaling deeply and flexing again. She could feel the muscles straining under her touch - pushing and pulling, converging in the center.

“What can you feel? Don’t stop,” Emily said, as she felt Amélie paused.

“I feel- _ugh_ ,” she groaned, “I don’t _know._ Exhaustion?”

“You’ve barely started!” Emily laughed - she had pearly white teeth and the sound of it was crystal clear on her ears. She decided right then she needed to hear that again. For science. “No, feel it - this is your strength. It’s right there, you see? You just have to pull it out of you.”

Amélie flexed again, and felt it - thrumming under her skin, begging to be released, the strength she thought she’d lost when she drove the car over a cliff on a rainy sunday night, five years before.

“Holy _shit_ ,” she cussed.

  
  


Amélie slammed her credit card on the reception balcony so hard she figured it was a miracle it didn’t break clean in half - it was another damn miracle the receptionist didn’t call the cops right there upon looking to her disheveled, panting, wide-eyed self. Hair a nest in her ponytail, face as red and sweaty as a wet tomato, knees a mess of purple blooming to where she’d pressed them against the metal of the pole, she was sure she was looking like she came out straight from a b horror movie.

The skin of her ass burned where Emily held her to get her to climb the pole.

She _loved_ it.

“How many classes do you want?” Said the blonde receptionist.

“How many can I buy?” she asked, hoarse.

Later, when she was on the bus home, still feeling tingly all over and high on endorphins, Angela’s message of “so, how did it go?” was answered with a mere “ _va te faire foutre_ ”.

She got many laughing emojis as a response - all of which were solemnly ignored while she browsed the web looking for pole dance shorts.

**Author's Note:**

> if you see any mistakes, please point them out!! it's hard being a ESL writer lol
> 
> thanks to: buttons for supporting this insanity, levi for listening to my ramblings and help me with the plot, the widowtracer discord server for indulging my questionable tastes and finally, my teacher Rose for helping me nail a sweet sweet jade split right before I flopped down the pole like a bag of potatoes and hurt myself lmao
> 
> hit me up on tumblr if you're into this cray cray shit http://lazy-universes.tumblr.com/


End file.
